Rehearsals Heat Up at ABT's Summer Intensive

Lindsay Karchin checks in with Pointe from ABT's summer intensive. See her other blog entries here.

The summer intensive show is only a week away, and we've been rehearsing a lot. The rehearsal period is a great time to build up stamina—we often run a piece twice in a row, which makes performing it once much easier! During rehearsals we are able to become more comfortable with the choreography, we really get to know the music and fix all corrections. With so many students in the program, there are usually two casts for each piece, but we all receive equal rehearsal time. Our teachers are really helpful and answer any questions the dancers have about the piece.

I talked about the rehearsal period with my friend Maddie Wittmann, who will be performing a section from the second act of Giselle. She said that rehearsals are a lot of fun, and that it is a challenge to make such a difficult piece look so effortless. She feels that this has been a very rewarding experience. She loves it when her teachers tell stories about their actual performance experiences, which are always inspiring and often funny.

In preparation for the show, the entire faculty will watch every level perform a run-through of the show at the ABT studios on Monday of the last week of the program. On Thursday, all dancers will travel in groups by subway to the Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts in Queens for dress rehearsals on stage. Each piece is given enough time for just one run-through, so all of the dancers must stay focused so they will be able to give the best performance.

In addition to the run-throughs, dress rehearsals and performances, parents are allowed to come to observe one ballet technique class, and the ABT National Training Curriculum participants will also be attending our classes. These are dance teachers and professionals from around the country who are learning the ABT teaching methods as designed and written by Franco De Vita and Raymond Lukens, along with Kevin McKenzie, a group of artistic advisors and a medical advisory board.

It’s hard to believe that we only have one week left of the summer intensive—I can’t wait for the final rehearsals and the performance!